


So Long We'd Become the Flowers

by QueenCassidy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes is also trying his best, But they try, F/M, Smut, So much angst, Soldat is trying his best, These people are emotionally stunted, Title from a Hozier Song, but also bittersweet fluff, theraputic smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-09-28 21:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20432531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenCassidy/pseuds/QueenCassidy
Summary: “Whatever we were, whatever we could’ve been doesn’t matter to me anymore.” Or, the continuing development of your relationship with Soldat and, years later, Bucky Barnes, and how you find yourself along the way.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After many late nights and a story that would not stop growing, here is my piece for @sovietghoststories #sovietghoststories3k on tumblr. Part one of two because this thing grew too big. The second half will be posted Sunday, and that has all the delicious smut.

April 1996

The first time you meet the Soldier in person is when he sweeps in and shoots your target between the eyes seconds before you were going to make the kill yourself. The mark lies on the floor at your feet and in front of you stands Hydra’s deadliest weapon-- a phrase you thought was unfair considering you had nearly as many successful missions as he did, and you did it all without being frozen in between each one to keep your loyalty in check.

“Soldat.” You say angrily. “What are you doing here?”

The Soldier pays you little mind as he holsters his gun and glances out the peep hole in the door. He’s dressed in tactical gear; pants, Kevlar, and a black long-sleeved shirt that seems to emphasize his metal arm rather than hide it. Goggles shielded his eyes but his mouth—pink lips that stood out against his pale Siberia chilled cheeks—was uncovered.

“I asked you a question.” You say firmly. “You jeopardized my mission.”

“I’m saving your mission.” He replies. “You missed check in. They sent me to clean up your mistakes. We’re to be back at the facility by dawn.” He doesn’t wait for your reply, instead he slips out the door to what you knew would be an empty hallway. Despite your seething anger, both at him and at Hydra for their lack of faith in you, you follow him out just as silently as you had arrived.

When dawn breaks over the horizon the both of you are seated side by side in Hydra’s debriefing room in front of Hydra’s top commanding officers. Your back is straight, shoulders pulled back to look more dignified in front of these men as they looked over the two of you. “I am confident the mission was completed successfully.” The Director says.

“Yes, Sir.” You both reply.

“Good. Now we have an assignment that needs to get done. The diplomat of last night is not the only one who is trying to pass laws that will hinder our organization’s future plans. There are several diplomats and scientists who seek to destroy what we have been building. It will take both of your skills and last several missions. This will not be a problem for the two of you.”

You never once glance at the man next to you, knowing it would give something away if you did. Jealousy? Anger? You are not sure, but any emotion shown would be incompetency on your part. The truth of the matter is that you were tired of having to prove yourself to these men, and by pairing you up with the Soldier—their favorite pet—you believe it was just another way of them showing they didn’t trust you could handle yourself. This time would be different though. You would slaughter every man, woman, and child you had to for this assignment and leave their precious Soldier with cleaner hands than he had seen in decades.

November 1996

Several guards paced around the perimeter of the warehouse, the metal of their guns shining slightly under the bright moonlight. Sneaking past them wouldn’t be a problem. This mission was different than the massacres you and the Soldier had been completing lately. You had become so used to blood seeping into your clothes, onto your tongue, as you shot and stabbed and strangled anyone Hydra told you to. The Soldier was right by your side the whole time, in one particular mission squeezing the life out of a man with his bare hands while you forced his wife to watch, the sharp of your blade cutting into her neck as she tried to turn away from the scene. The two of you worked better than anyone could have expected, including yourself. He was fine with you taking the lead and fine with you leaving your trail of bodies to impress Hydra--though you couldn’t always be too sure. Where you set out to prove yourself, the Soldier performed every task of his life with a perfect detachment, his face never revealing any emotion he could have felt. He was truly Hydra’s perfect weapon. At this point you had moved away from jealousy. You weren’t sure if you pitied him or admired him.

You both were under strict orders to retrieve a copy of some data you weren’t privileged to know the contents of without alerting anyone you were here to begin with. Typically this wouldn’t be a problem for you, but this was no ordinary warehouse. This warehouse knew the value of their cargo and had already thwarted several attempts by agencies to retrieve their data. Of course, none of these agencies was Hydra, and none of those agents were you or Soldat. You pulled the binoculars away from your face and turned to the Soldier whose own gaze was focused through his sniper. “The blueprints say there’s a stairwell to the basement just inside the left entrance.” You tell him.

“I know.” He replies.

“So we should head through there. No need in making this anymore complicated. Those guards are easy enough to get past. There’s just no knowing what kind of security lies behind that door though.”

“We’ll sneak past those guards together. When we reach the basement I’ll deal with whatever else is down there while you get the data. Then we sneak back up the same way we came in and pretend we weren’t even here.” The Soldier says.

“What happened to the part where we aren’t supposed to let anyone know we were here?” You asked.

“They won’t know that _we _were here. They’ll know that _someone _was here. And their data will still be in place when we’re done so it’s not like they’ll know what we stole. It’s a solid plan.” He slides into a sitting position and begins putting away his sniper. It was almost show time.

“Yeah,” You grumbled. “A solid D.”

He shoots you an unamused look, one quite different than the blank slate he usually leaves his face in. “Better than an F.”

Sneaking past the outside guards was just as easy as you had both anticipated. The two of you blended into the night, moving across the wet grass with little squelch from your boots until you reached the side of the building. The door was thick steel and windowless with a metal handle for a doorknob and a dense lock. He nodded at you and turned to keep watch, trusting you with this task you had mastered years ago. Your deft fingers get to work and less than a minute passes before you feel the bolt slide back against your tool. Meeting the Soldier’s eyes for a second before moving into position and gripping the door handle while he holds his silenced pistol in front of him, the two of you hold each other’s gaze for a moment before you pull the door open slowly to avoid any creaking. He slides in once there’s enough space for him and you quickly follow. Your gun is up in a second as you glance at your surroundings.

No one.

The hallway is about forty feet long and lit with a string of dim lights. The walls are made of cement, yet the place smells of mold. There should be guards here. You were expecting there to be guards, and by the way the Soldier’s eyes cut rapidly to every corner and shadow of the hall you know he was too. The stairway is on your left and unlike the hall, is not lit. It descends into complete darkness—_a purposeful choice_, you calculated.

The blueprints of the facility are burned in your mind by now and you know there are ventilation ducts that run down to the room where the data lay, but there is no way the Soldier would fit through them and you couldn’t leave him behind--he would never let you. Meeting the enemy straight on was the only way then. He walks silently over to the stairs, gun perfectly aimed in front of him and body stiff with the anticipation of a fight. You follow without question. Each step down dragging you into the cover of darkness.

The bottom of the staircase is illuminated by a small square window cut into a door, and one glance through it reveals several guards standing at attention. Showtime. With one last quick exchange of looks the two of you burst forward, taking out each of the guards in rapid succession with your silenced weapons. Their bodies drop with slight thuds and once you’re sure the hallway is clear you quickly proceed to where the data is kept. It takes you no time at all to boot up their data system and begin stealing their information, your fingers dancing over the keyboard in practiced motions. You can hear Soldat shooting behind you, hear the rapid click clack of him exchanging clips once they fall empty, but you remain focused on your task, knowing that if he needs you pride would not prevent him from telling you so.

When the chirp of the computer tells you the data copying is finished, you quickly remove your drive and secure it, wanting out of this warehouse as soon as possible to complete the mission. As you turn around a breath catches in your throat. It’s a blood bath. Bodies are scattered along the hallway, piling onto top of each other as Soldat continues to shoot them down. Yet, the sound of stomping feet and shouted commands tells you there are more coming. You flank the Soldier on his left side, each of you shielded behind opposite sides of the doorway. The hallway’s only curve is nearly fifty feet away so the enemies have no choice but to meet you head on, and when they do the collective display of your and Soldat’s skills leave no one alive. Bullets puncture the walls around you, and the echoes of shots fired make you wince in sympathy for your ear drums. When the hall goes silent for longer than a minute the only sounds you can hear are the soft pants coming from the man next to you.

“We should head back up. The quicker we get out of here the better.” You say as you reload your clip.

“True. But they might be gathering reinforcements to meet us once we get out of this room. Clearly they know by now meeting us here is a terrible idea.” He replies.

“Why give them the opportunity to gather then? I stand by my point. We should head out of here.” 

He lets out a deep sigh, one you can tell expels the tension in his body from the way it slackens his thick shoulders. “Alright fine, have it your way.”

You’re surprised at his lack of resistance, but decide not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Quickly, you exit the room with the Soldier hot on your heels. You step over still warm bodies as if you were navigating a maze. By the time you reach the door the soles of your boots are leaving a red marked trail behind you. It’s only when you turn to the Soldier to let him enter the stairwell first that you see the guard move in your peripheral vision.

He appears behind the curve of the hallway, gun poised perfectly but he isn’t aiming at you. No, he has his gun pointed straight at Soldat. You don’t even think. Instinct surges through you and you shove the Soldier as hard as you can out of the way, taking his position instead and firing a single shot at the enemy just as he fires back at you.

The force of the bullet sends the guard falling backwards—bullet hole painting his forehead with drips of red that slide down his face with the weight of gravity. Unfortunately for you the force of his bullets has you stumbling backwards as well. You manage to keep your footing but the flaming pain that’s spreading across your chest and shoulder is almost enough to have you falling to your knees anyway. The Soldier appears in front of you—his usually expressionless face is marked with furrowed brows and a deep frown.

“Can you move?” He questions. He doesn’t ask how bad your injury is, the blood seeping from your wounds and darkening your already black uniform serves as a clear indicator.

“Yes. Let’s just get out of here.” You say and press your right hand onto your wounds to try and stifle the stream of blood.

Your confirmation seems to satisfy him, so he straightens up and begins to head back the way you came in, gun positioned at the ready given how much noise you’d both just made. You follow him back up the obscure staircase, senses keen as always despite your injury, but there are no guards waiting for you at the surface. The Soldier glances back at you for a second to make sure of your position, still with his unusual frown still resting perfectly on his face. He must not like what he sees because you see it deepen before he turns and opens the entrance door. Your hand slips from your shoulder to pull out the pistol you keep on your waist.

This proves to be unnecessary though. The cool outside air fills your nostrils as you and the Soldier survey the area. The guards from earlier still stand in their positions, unaware of the short firefight that had just taken place minutes ago.

_It must’ve been a soundproof basement_, you thought just as your vision began to swirl. This time you did fall backwards and into the dark.

~~

The Soldier is chanting your name repeatedly, which is strange because he has never referred to you by anything other than your title in the entire time you’d been working together. It’s that realization that has your eyes snapping open and your breath leaving your chest in a harsh gasp. Your vision adjusts quickly and you can suddenly make out Soldat. He’s leaning above you, eyes dancing around your face concerningly. It takes a second for you to realize that the weight you feel around your hand is his gripping it tightly.

“Soldat?” Your voice rasps.

He looks almost surprised to see you’re awake. The Soldier pulls away from your body quickly, rising to his feet and crossing the room. You miss the feel of his hand in yours instantly for reasons you’d rather not analyze. Instead, you survey your surroundings. The wood-planked walls and candlelit lighting tell you you’re back at the cabin Hydra assigned as your safehouse. The Soldier had carried you all the way back here.

Speaking of, he returns just as suddenly as he left holding a cold glass of water. As soon as you try to sit up your wounds protest loudly. The groan that escapes your lips has the Soldier reaching and arm across your back to help you sit up properly. He watches your face closely as you swallow down the glass of water, but you can’t hold his gaze for too long.

You’re ashamed.

You’re weak.

You’re everything Hydra expected you to be.

“I’m sorry.” You tell him as soon as your drink is finished.

“Sorry?”

“Yes. I failed to realize where that guard was. You were nearly shot. We made more noise than Hydra wanted us to in that warehouse and you had to carry my unconscious body back here because I was weak and terrible at my job. I’m everything they say I am; I don’t know why I tried to prove myself to be different.” You announced. The bloody crime scenes you’ve left lying around the last few months when you could’ve done the jobs neat. The horror you’ve inflicted on targets and their families just so you could prove yourself competent had really done the opposite. You proved yourself to be led by your emotions, and emotions made you weak. You saw that now. They were always right to prefer the Soldier over you.

A silence stretches between the two before Soldat breaks it to ask, “Are you always this self-depreciating when you get shot or is this a special case?”

“Excuse me?” You whip your head around to glare at him.

“It’s an honest question.” He says. “I’ve read your file. You’ve been shot 6 times before tonight. I just wanted to know if this reaction is typical so I can figure out how to plan for next time.”

“You know you’re kind of an asshole.” You tell him harshly.

“I…was trying to be helpful. I wanted to know if you always feel like you’re a failure whenever you don’t think you’ve lived up to Hydra’s expectations.” Soldat says, “Here’s some unwarranted advice for you. Stop trying to impress them, because you never will. They see success and they see failure but they don’t see you. You know what you’re capable of, and by now I know what you’re capable of so believe me when I say…you’re better than they’ll ever know. Or deserve to know.”

You stare at him, chapped lips parted slightly in shock. This was…treason. Hydra demanded loyalty, in all missions, and above personal morals. The Soldier was supposed to be their most loyal subject and yet here he was, going against the loyalty they both physically and mentally beat into him to make you feel better about yourself outside of how they had defined you.

And yet you agreed with him, so where did that leave your loyalty?

Your eyes met again and you had your answer.

“Thank you. For saying that…and for dragging my unconscious ass back here,” You tell him. “You…err…_it_… means a lot. Really.”

His mouth twists upward somewhat into what you think might be a smile if the Soldier could ever be capable of one and you smile at him in return, the warmth you feel in your chest having nothing to do with the heat in the cozy candlelit cabin.

April 1997

It’s almost poetic how you first met the Soldier on a frigid Siberian night, and now your last assigned mission together has the two of you sitting in a tree outside a businessman’s house as snowflakes leave wet kisses on your exposed hands. Anatoly Yelnov and his sons ran a weapon smuggling ring through most of the former Soviet Union and he recently decided to cut ties with Hydra to fatten his own wallet. To Hydra that meant he signed his death wish, and the two of you were tasked with slaughtering his entire family as an example to Hydra’s other business partners about the consequences of failed loyalty. The belief that this mission was a consequence for the mess you two had created at the warehouse months back was something both you and the Soldier agreed on.

You could feel the heat of him pressed against you as the two of you wait for your entrance. Though your relationship never included much talking—the two of you shared a penchant for silent communication and a distaste for small talk—there was a thick tension that existed between you that hadn’t been there before the warehouse. For you, the realization was setting in that your partnership, hell you’d go one step further and say friendship, was coming to an end and soon you’d be alone. You never had a problem with working alone before; it allowed you to showcase your abilities, make your own choices, and offer you peace away from Hydra’s often confining walls. But now, with him, you’d come to value the camaraderie and mutual understanding that could only exist between two people who had survived and done horrific things. Once this was over you had a sickening feeling they were going to put him back on ice indefinitely and he’d forget you. It had become clear to everyone that pairing the two of you up had changed you both in some way.

“Yelnov’s still in his office.” You mumble as you watch the old man file another paper through the lens of your binoculars.

“The sons are pulling up to the house now. Gala must’ve ended early.” He replies.

“Or their deal went well and they saw no use in staying."

He pulls his own pair of binoculars slightly away from his chilled face to stare at you in what your sure he thinks is a subtle way. But you’re familiar with him now the way one becomes familiar with a book they’ve read many times—you know every bent page, every comma that indicates a subtle yet important pause. The way he pauses to look at you now tells you he’s dreading the end of this mission just as much as you are.

“Guess it’s time to give them their reward for coming home then, huh?” He says softly.

You meet his piercing gaze. “Guess so.”

Slipping into the Yelnov house was as simple as breaking the lock on their sliding glass doors and striding into the living room. There was no need for subtly in the mess you were about to make. The three men stood gathered around a wood fireplace tossing back tumblers of alcohol with the bright grins of success painted on their faces. The eldest son is just beginning to tell a joke when you stride into the room in a thin catsuit that does nothing to keep your body warm.

It does, however, capture the attention of these simple men. “Which one of you ordered a lady for us to celebrate?” The eldest asks as his gaze travels the length of your body, you can see him pause when he catches the sight of your silenced pistol already cocked in your hand.

“Hydra did.” You answered before swiftly shooting him between the eyes. His glass drops and shatters against the wood floor seconds before his body hit the ground next to it. The other two sons have quick reaction times, you had to give them that. You promptly duck behind their leather couch as they pull guns out from their coat pockets and begin firing at your covered position.

A sudden thud lets you know the Soldier has finally arrived and joined in on the action, and you peek out from your position to shoot the last of Yelnov’s sons as he stares in shock at the corpses of his brothers spread out at his feet.

“Nice of you to show up.” You teased as he enters the room through an open window by the fireplace. “I had to take care of the driver. You know he’s been working for Yelnov for years.” Soldat replies, “Besides, you had it handled.”

You smiled slightly at his confidence. The two of you search the pockets of Yelnov’s sons for any information on their gala trade deal before creeping up the stairs to his office. You were sure he knew you were here, the silencers on your guns may have kept secrets but the shots those men fired yelled the truth to the whole house. It didn’t matter though, at least if he put up a fight it would make your night interesting. The Soldier kicked down the door to Yelnov’s office with more force than necessary, splintering the wood into dozens of tiny pieces.

“Bozhe moi!” Yelnov shouts, giving away his hiding position behind his desk. You don’t even think about it. That’s what you tell yourself weeks, months, years later as you reflect upon this moment in nightmares. You march up to the front of Yelnov’s desk, not bothering to loop around and pull the coward out from his false protection before you empty the rest of your clip through the top of the cherry oak wood.

There’s always been a sick satisfaction you receive after you make a kill. There was no blaming it on Hydra and what they did to you. No, the sound of a man’s dying breath, his choked gasps, were a symphony to your ears. The sounds of a job well done. You wait to hear those gasps after you shoot Yelnov. Instead, your brows furrow in confusion when you hear a wail.

A child’s wail.

Realization sets in and you pull Yelnov’s desk back with a harsh force, nearly sending it into the opposite wall. There, laying at your feel is Yelnov’s body decorated with bullets. You can tell by the blood puddled around his head that he probably died right after the first shot. However, that’s not what holds your attention. A dark-haired little girl is wrapped in his arms, curled up against him in a way you know was meant to shield her body from the attack. Horror strikes through you like lightning.

You drop to your knees next to their bodies, distinctly making note of the sound of the Soldier moving closer to examine what you had just discovered. Slowly you reach for the girl and you watch as she tries to pull away from your hand but can’t. It’s only when you take in her pale complexion and the blood pooled between the two bodies that cannot possibly be Yelnov’s that you understand what you’ve truly done. 

“Oh God.” You say. “Oh God!”

The Soldier acts first, reaching for the girl where your hand, as well as the rest of your body, has frozen. He pulls her from Yelnov’s body and lays her on her back as the wails that had been leaving her lips turned to silent sobs, the life rapidly exiting her leaving her unable to do much more. Her shirt is covered in blood and unicorns and when Soldat lifts it to check the damage you’re able to see the hole in her stomach where the blood pours from.

You reach for her, carding your hand through her hair. This little girl whose name you do not know but whose life is quickly ending because of you. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” You chant against her hair, and suddenly your silent sobs match hers.

It’s later, much later, when you and the Soldier finally make it back to the safe house. You make your way to the sink to wash off the last of the girl’s blood from your arms as he paces the room. The two of you hadn’t shared a single word since the mansion, knowing nothing can fill the void that tonight’s events had opened. You sit on the sole bed in the room when your finished and stare at your hands. You had killed innocents before. Men and women. Hell, you had killed quite a few during your partnership with the Soldier just in the last year. But you had never killed anyone accidently, and in all your years you’ve never killed a child.

You knew you’d never be considered a saint, but you also hadn’t expected to be this much of a sinner.

“You know she had to die, right?” The Soldier says, breaking you out of your reverie.

“Excuse me?”

“They told us no survivors. They knew what they were doing. This mission was a test of our loyalty just as much as it was a reminder for others. There was no way they were going to allow us to let her live. She was our true mission.” He says it so detached, like his words are simple facts and not the details of an unexpectedly brutal mission, that it sends you into a fury.

“Do you feel anything? Honestly? How can you try and rationalize this?” You yell at him.

“Because looking at it rationally is the only way to process it. Hydra wanted to test us. Whether you did or I did it, or neither of us did it they were going to kill her. And if we didn’t do it they would’ve shot one of us, probably you, along with her.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn’t. I’d rather be lying beside her than have her blood on my hands. God, how the hell do you do it? Feel nothing? They may have given you a robotic arm Soldat, but you must’ve been an unfeeling machine long before then.” Your words cut like sharp knife against him. You see the way his face darkens in anger and when he strides up to you your muscles tense at the ready for a fight.

“You think you have me all figured out, do you?” He sneers. “The unfeeling soldier. Hydra’s robot. You know nothing of what I feel. Not everyone can wear their hearts on their sleeves, doll.”

“And what do you feel, Soldat? Anger? Certainly not remorse. Or lo—” Whatever you were about to say next is swallowed up in the press of the Soldier’s lips against yours.

Years of ingrained training has your arm reaching up to punch him, to force his body away before reality catches up to you and you realize he’s tilted it on its access. His lips are soft, softer than you had ever let yourself imagine, and when you tentatively begin to return his kiss its like a dam has broken open.

All the hidden glances, the trust and tension built up between you two throughout the last year bursts forward like a wave, washing you both in relief. You pull him back with you onto the bed to bring him closer, wanting to feel every inch of him pressed against you like a heated blanket. His body covers yours and he cradles your jaw delicately in his metal hand, angling his head so he can kiss you deeper.

In the meeting of lips, shared breaths, and lingering touches time seems to lose all meaning. The harshness of your circumstances cannot penetrate the purity of your union, but when he pulls back from your mouth to catch his breath the way he looks at you nearly shatters your heart. Everything is written clearly on his face, in the light behind his eyes and the nervous quirk of his mouth and you cannot stop yourself from brushing your thumb against the dimple in his cheek. How mere minutes ago you’d believed this man to be callous seems so foreign to you now. 

“You accuse me of being unfeeling. Truthfully though, I do feel…for you.” He whispers as though he’s revealing a dark secret.

And really, he is. Because despite how much you return his feelings. Despite the devotion you feel. Despite the way you’d lay your life down for his, just like the look on his face tells you he would happily lay his down for you…this couldn’t happen.

“Soldat, Hydra will view this as weakness. Failure.” You tell him. “They’ll put you in the chair and make you forget all about us. Then they’ll put you on ice and probably kill me.”

He frowns at this and you can see the way his eyes glaze over as if trying to find a way to escape what you both know to be inevitable. “No, we won’t let them know. We hide it, and perhaps someday we can get away from this place. Together.”

It’s unrealistic, idealistic, and all the other things you knew to be sentimentally impossible. But as he pulled you tightly against his chest you almost believed him.

Looking back all you could think is _what a fool_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky Barnes isn't the man you knew in Hydra, but maybe that's a good thing.

_ Now  _

Your back hits the mat with a hard _thud_, breath driving itself out of your lungs with the force of impact. Natasha stands over you with a smirk on her lips, clearly taking pleasure from the beating she was giving you during this sparring match.

“You know that move should be illegal.” You tell her as you pull yourself up. “Improper use of thighs.”

“You’re just jealous you can’t do it yourself.” She replies. “All you have to do is ask and I’ll teach you.”

She would, too. Natasha Romanoff was a woman of many faces, a woman who had crafted her own identity after flipping off Mother Russia and proceeding to burn it all to the ground. She had successfully moved on from her past while you were what she affectionately liked to refer to as _in progress_. When she and Steve had tracked you down on one of the contracted jobs you performed for money, you were little more than a defensive wild animal trying to stay three steps ahead of Hydra. They were looking for Soldat, having somehow found out about your brief partnership. After a fight in which Natasha used her infamous thigh hold to incapacitate you, you figured it was a good idea to join up with the people who poured all of Hydra’s secrets on the internet. At the very least, it would be better living situation than you had then—run down shacks in various countries to make sure you didn’t leave a trail.

Now here you were years later, still falling prey to Natasha’s skills.

“I think I’d have to attend more of Bruce’s yoga classes before I’m flexible enough to do that.” You say, “Though he also claims the release of tension in downward dog helps with self-loathing so maybe I should attend one soon.”

Natasha snorts at that before taking a long gulp from her water bottle. The two of you exit the ring and start heading to the showers when your phone buzzes with a text from Steve.

_Have a mission for you. Meet me in the debrief room in 5. _

You show Natasha the message and proceed to make it to the room with a minute to spare. Seated at the head of the large table is Steve. His face schooled into the serious expression he saves for missions and bad news. To his left sits the Sol—_Bucky Barnes_, who’s surprised expression at the sight of you must mirror your own. You could count the number of times you’d interacted with Bucky on one hand and each one of them was awkward or painful, sometimes they were both. He was not the man you knew, the man who had chosen you over his programming, who had fought them tooth and nail to be able to stay by your side after your partnership and paid the price for it by being violently forced to forget about you.

You had escaped Hydra the next day, slaughtering the grunts they sent to watch over you on your next mission and becoming a whisper in the wind for years. Now all you were left with was a lifetime’s worth of guilt-ridden nightmares tearing you from sleep every night and the living reminder of your darkest deed sleeping down the hall. Given the way Bucky hasn’t looked you in the eye once since joining the Avengers a year ago you knew he had to feel the same way.

So why were you sitting across from him in the debriefing room while the two of you stared at Steve only so you wouldn’t have to look at each other?

“I have a mission for you both,” Steve began. “There is a sex trafficking ring in Siberia that has been stealing girls from small towns. They’ve been virtually untraceable until now. Thanks to some tips from some locals and Tony’s tech we’ve been able to track down their location, and given your backgrounds and the time you’ve spent there I think you’re the best people to take them down.”

The best people? He had to be joking. Steve knew you and Bucky had a past—hell, it was the entire reason he recruited you to begin with—and it was clear to everyone who had ever been in the room with the two of you that this shared history of yours was not pleasant. You had no idea why he would pair the two of you up. Even more, you hated Siberia with a deep, burning passion.

You told Steve none of this though. Captain’s orders meant Captain’s orders, and while you had no problem voicing your dissent when the moment called for it, there was no reasonable excuse you could come up with that would prevent you from going on this mission. One quick glance at Bucky’s grimaced expression told you he must’ve felt the same way.

Wheels up in thirty then.

~~

Less than twenty four hours later you and Bucky were flanking opposite sides of a thick wooden door. The rest of the house looked run down, the windows were boarded up with rotting slabs, probably decaying as a result of the numerous Siberian snowfalls that have coated them over the years. The brick of the house was faded and, in many parts, split and sinking into the ground_. It was no wonder these traffickers were able to stay hidden for so long_, you thought, _no one was going to look for them in some abandoned house miles away from any town._ You met Bucky’s eyes and held the, determination in his gaze mirroring yours, there was no reservation between the two of you right now. Whether the two of you were the people you were back then or the people you were now it didn’t matter. There was a job to get done and Steve was right, you were well matched in the field. There was no better team for this mission.

He nodded his head at you, giving you the signal that had you kicking down the wooden door and launching into the house with your gun up. Like the last time you were here, subtlety was not needed for this mission; you were here as executors. The first thing you noticed was the three armed men sitting at a rounded table, piles of American bills split between them as they counted. You wasted no time shooting the one closest to you and the light _pew pew_ sound of Bucky’s silenced rifle to your left sang the song of the other two men’s deaths. Their bodies crashed forward onto the table, sending money into the air like vibrant scene in a cartel film. The second thing you noticed was the horrid toe curling smell created by what you assumed was a rancid mixture of death, decay, and human excrement. The scent burned your nose like sulfur and raised the hair on the back of your neck.

You both wasted no time continuing on, each checking opposite directions to take out enemies all while protecting the back of one another. Four more men went down before you even left the entryway, and by the time you made it to the back of the house the floor was sticky with several pools of blood. You weaved in and out of doors, triple checking that the main floor of the house was clear of any living bodies, before meeting back up with Bucky. He turned to you and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak the distant sound of gunshots permeated the air. You both stared at each other for quarter of a second, the ingrained reflexes in your bodies coming to life almost instantly, and ducked out of plain sight. It quickly became evident that the rapid shots were not directed at you though, but were firing outside the house.

The only other place on this property was the wine cellar that Tony’s tech, and the two of you, confirmed to be empty not even ten hours ago. Apparently, it was empty no longer and the sickening realization of just who this person was shooting at dropped like a lead weight deep into your stomach. You sprung from cover and raced out the door not even checking to see if Bucky was following you or had come to the same horrifying realization. The sprint took you no time at all, and the door to the cellar already open when your boots came to a halt at the descending stairs. If the smell in the house horrible, it was nothing compared to the raw and putrid scent that spills from the cellar and into the air. Your body is bleeding adrenaline, and instinct barely forces you to lift your gun into position before you descend rapidly down the stairs just as another gunshot rang out. You don’t even think before you fire a bullet into the head of a looming man. His body propelling back as his blood splatters against the wall like a Jackson Pollock painting, barely illuminated by the sole hanging lightbulb in the center of the room.

You glance around you, taking in the sight of several unmoving bodies littering the area. You were too late. Dropping to your knees then, body literally sinking into the rotted ground of the cellar, you stare at the latest example of your failure. There was a movement behind you, steady footsteps that had echoed in your mind long after they stopped following you into battle. You glance back at Bucky, and the stern look on his face and the rigidness of his posture reminded you so much of Soldat. Reminded you of another little girl years ago whose death you had caused. It seems like no matter the good you tried to do now, the better person you tried to be, you could not escape your past.

~~

Just like the last time you had failed this badly, you trudge back to your safe house in complete silence with the man next to you. On the outside the safe house looks like nothing more than a glorified shack held together by nails and hope, but the inside was a lavish open room with two beds, a shower, and a kitchenette courtesy of Stark. After a quick call to Steve to update him on the events of the night you head for a shower to wash the foul stench of the night off your skin.

By the time you came out of the steaming bathroom you had rubbed your skin raw. Bucky sat on the bed closest to the door, having stripped out of his tactical gear and down to a pair of loose drawstring pants and the thin shirt you knew he always wore under his vest. Soldat had told you one night after a mission that he hated the way the gear rubbed at his chest.

_But he wasn’t Soldat,_ you reminded yourself. He was Bucky Barnes and he had escaped from his past. You were the only one who was still stuck making the same mistakes. You move to the other bed, fully content with gathering up your things so they were ready for evac in the morning and laying down for what you were sure was going to be a restless night.

“I remember, you know.” Bucky says quietly, pulling you from your reverie. “The little girl from before. I remember everything from before. This wasn’t like that.”

You pause for a second. Before this you were completely content with never bringing up your shared past with Bucky Barnes. From the way he actively sought to avoid you it seemed like the feeling was mutual, but tonight he seemed to have changed his mind. “Those girls died because we were careless. Anna Yelnov died because I was careless. It seems the same to me.”

“We had trusted information from a source with recorded patterns. We checked the facility less than ten hours before we executed our mission. There shouldn’t have been any girls there. You weren’t careless.” His gaze travels your face, contemplating. “I…know how you are. You’re being self-depreciating again. Like you did in Siberia the first time and—”

“You don’t know who I am.” You interrupt him. “You don’t get to sit here and pretend you know anything about me when we haven’t spoken in years.”

“You’re not the only one that’s haunted by the past! I wanted to talk to you.” Bucky tells you heatedly. “Don’t you think I wanted to? But what the hell was I supposed to say?”

“There’s nothing to say!” You snap as the tension in the room rises. “What happened, happened! We can’t go back and change it, Soldat!”

Your mouth snaps shut as soon as the name crosses your lips. A cold realization washes over you at your mistake, and the look of shock and utter disbelief that mars Bucky’s face is something you know will haunt your nights for months to come. “I’m so sorry, Bucky.” You apologized.

He’s silent for so long it makes your heart ache, and when he does finally speak it’s little more than a whisper. “I’m not…I’m not him. And I can’t apologize for that because he was the worst part of me. But you were the best part of him...and when you were around for that year I think that’s the only time I ever felt like I had some control. That I was me. So in a way, you were the best part of him and the best part of me…you made us whole.”

There’s a moment where thought stops and instinct takes over. Commonly called the adrenaline rush, it happens when one is in danger. Right now though, as you somehow manage to launch yourself at Bucky, this adrenaline rush seems to be primal--raw, and needy. You slot your mouth against his, trying to swallow down the taste of his confession. You can feel his hesitation. Bucky’s body goes rigid at the first press of your lips, hands frozen before they come up to cup your jaw tenderly. He meets your ferocity and then some, pressing your bodies closer as if he wants to consume you, to take all of you in and become one soul. Every touch is charged with arousal and affection, every breath shared between you a whisper of emotions neither of you know how to say aloud.

He ends up beneath you on his bed, your bodies pressed against each other perfectly, yet you break the contact briefly to pull your loose shirt over your head, the cotton fabric sending charges over your nipples before they are exposed to the air and to Bucky’s surprised gaze. His mouth opens, closes, and opens again as if he’s trying to find the words to describe the sight he sees before him.

“Touch me.” You plead to him breathlessly. 

The command seems to help him gather his bearings because he quickly follows your command, lips latching onto one nipple as his metal hand comes up to pinch the other. The mixture of sensations, Bucky’s mouth suckling while his metal fingers pinch your pert bud and cool it down all in the same motion has slickness pooling between your thighs. He switches breasts and continues his sensations while you card your hands through his soft hair, subconsciously diluting your hips against the hardness you can feel at the seam of his thin pants. You’re panting with want, with need for this man beneath you, and when the pleasure begins to build you pull Bucky’s mouth back to yours. He slips his free hands beneath your shorts until he’s gripping your bare ass tightly and guiding your motions against his hips.

But you want more. You want him bare and breathless and sweaty beneath you, in you, and all the other ways you could think of. So you pull away from him and stand unsteadily on your feet. Bucky’s look of confusion at your exit quickly soothed when you slide the rest of your clothes down your legs leaving you completely exposed to the cooled room and his heated gaze.

“You’re beautiful.” Bucky whispered, eyes trailing over every inch of your skin.

You couldn’t help the way your cheeks warmed, his praise of you in any capacity meaning more than you’d ever be comfortable admitting. “You’re wearing too many clothes.” You reply instead.

He quickly begins to remediate that problem, pulling his shirt over his head in one smooth move while you reach for his pants. He lifts his hips for you and soon he’s just as bare as you are, on display for your unwavering gaze. His body looks like chiseled marble. A sculpted god. You want to dip your tongue into every curve of muscle, trace over every scar until they’re burned in your memory.

Bucky pulls you to him, wanting to feel the slide of your skin against his, and rolls you beneath him. Your legs part instinctively and the brush of his hard cock against your core sends a shiver through both of your bodies. You hadn’t been with anyone in so long that the memory is almost nonexistent. A faded, unimportant part of your history. Bucky, though. Bucky is your past and present. You and Soldat had never gone farther than your one kiss, your one stolen moment that you clung to for years after you thought you’d never see him again. Here with Bucky there’s no fear of loss, no fear that what you feel for each other is going to be torn away from you, body and soul. Instead you gaze up at him, eyes meeting, and the slight smile decorating his mouth reflected on yours. Regardless of all the hardships that you’ve faced together and apart, in this moment you both knew this was where you were supposed to be.

Despite the tenderness of the moment there is nothing soft in the way Bucky lines himself up and pushes into you, velvet hardness stretching you to the brink, filling you in a way you’ve never felt before. He sets a steady pace that has you seeing stars, hips snapping harshly against yours as he sneaks his hands under your knees to push them up and apart, sinking impossibly deeper inside of you.

You’re gasping into Bucky’s neck, teeth grazing against his pulse point as you scrape your nails down his back in pleasure, bright red lines that will surely fade by morning. You lift your hips on every thrust, meeting him head on in your chase for pleasure, your chase for unity. The wet slap of skin echoes in the room as his balls hammer against your ass, and when he slips his metal arm between you to flick against your clit you can’t help but keen.

“You feel so good around me, doll.” Bucky grunts into your neck. “So fucking good.”

You moan in response, unable to formulate any words with the way pleasure was coursing through your veins, lighting every nerve on fire. You’re so _so _close, and it seems Bucky can tell because he picks up the pace, nearly bending you in half with the way he presses against you. You can feel the tightly coiled wire of your desire constricting, and when he pinches your clit between his metal fingers your coil snaps, mind whiting out as the rush of your orgasm courses through you. You clench down on his cock, sucking him into such a tight wet heat that he can’t help but bottom out. And then he’s coming, cock spasming as he spurts streams of spend into your sensitive core.

It’s later, much later, when Bucky finally finds the energy to roll off of you, suddenly realizing he was probably crushing you beneath his super solider weight. You roll with him though, not wanting to part from him for a moment, and curl yourself into his side. The skin of your bodies stick together where they meet, the sweat of your coupling acting as an adhesive. The air in the room breathes thick with the smell of sex and your thighs are painted with the evidence of your orgasms, but you bask in the after glow and the comfort that lives between you two.

“I tried to come back for you. After they put you under, I wanted to find a way to bring you with me but I couldn’t. That haunted me just as much as Siberia.” You whisper against his chest.

“Hydra was furious when you left. They had wiped me by then, like you know, so I didn’t have any real memory of you but I always felt like part of me was missing. When I was me again and I started searching for who I was, the first thing I remembered was Steve. The next thing I remembered was you, but I couldn’t find any information on you. It was like you were a ghost, a jarred memory like everyone else in my past.” He replies, tightening his arm around you as if he’s afraid you’ll disappear.

Your heart breaks for him. In a way, you had always thought he had gotten a slightly better deal. Even if they wiped all memory of you at least he didn’t have to live with the raw, bloody memory of what was. Turns out you were wrong.

“When I saw you for the first time at the compound, I couldn’t believe it,” He continues. “But I didn’t want to bring up the past for you, it already haunted me. I thought I was helping you by avoiding you…but sometimes I could still hear you screaming down the hall and I knew you were just as haunted as me.”

You lifted your head to look at him. “I didn’t want to bring up the past for you either. I saw how you were with Steve, how you joked with Sam. I know you aren’t him and I didn’t want you to feel like you had to be.” You confess, “I want you to be you. Whatever we were, whatever we could’ve been doesn’t matter to me anymore. What matters to me is who we are now, and who we can become--together. The past will always be there, the nightmares will still keep us up, but I think we can move forward.”

The way Bucky looks at you can only be described as awe, his eyes lighten, his mouth twists into a shadow of a grin and he leans up to press a soft featherlike kiss against your mouth.

“That’s all I want doll. _You’re_ all I want.”

And this time you don’t feel like a fool when you believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read my little brain child. Comments and kudos bring me so much joy! Please leave me some!


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